


Rising

by goddessofcruelty



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: BAMF Jem Walker, F/F, Happy Ending, Human Amy Dyer, M/M, Partially Deceased Syndrome, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2270967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessofcruelty/pseuds/goddessofcruelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re a study in contrasts, Simon thinks, watching Kieren talk to Philip. Kier’s golden where he’s dark, where Simon stands confidently, Kieren seems diffident. Simon led with certainty and charisma. Kier cajoles and empathizes. Which is how he’s gotten Philip, initially distrustful of them, to talk, to tell them about Amy.<br/>---<br/>Set post s2e6</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rising

**Author's Note:**

> Brit-picked by the lovely, talented, and brilliant [NinaRooxx](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NinaRooxx), thank you love!

They’re a study in contrasts, Simon thinks, watching Kieren talk to Philip. Kier’s golden where he’s dark, where Simon stands confidently, Kieren seems diffident. Simon led with certainty and charisma. Kier cajoles and empathizes.

Which is how he’s gotten Philip, initially distrustful of them, to talk, to tell them about Amy.

“I swear,” Simon hears him insist to Kier, “She was turning back to human. I felt her heart beat before that maniac stabbed her.” Philip’s eyes go distant. “I thought she’d come back again, I knew she would. I should have waited longer.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Kieren rests his hand on Philip’s shoulder and the man looks at him gratefully.

Simon listens to the living man’s story, how they’d been in the tent, and Simon tried to imagine making that choice for Kier, and he can’t. He couldn’t kill the younger man when it was time to sacrifice the First Risen- Wait.

“What was that you just said?” Simon interrupts Philip, earning himself a frown from Kieren.

“I was just saying that Miss Martin was mumbling when she stabbed my Amy.”

She was never your Amy, Simon thinks bitterly, but nods encouragingly.

“She was talking about Amy being the first and the last. She was cracked.”

“Thank you, Philip,” Kieren smiles, and pats him again, darts a glance to Simon, who’s lost in thought.

“Well, we’re off to the grave now.” He looks down at Philip. “You coming?”

“Nah,” the living man shakes his head, “I’ve seen it, but…Ren?”

“Yeah, Lip?”

“If you see that little plushie… Well I’d like it.”

“Sure, course.” One last pat and then Kieren wanders through the door, followed by what seems to be a brooding Simon. He reaches out and smooths the furrow of his brow. “Face’ll freeze that way.”

Simon blinks up, gives Kieren a tight smile but become lost in thought the whole way to Amy’s grave – second grave.

“Out with it,” Kier says after they’ve stared down in silence at the empty hole where Amy was re-buried.

“Something Philip said,” Simon murmurs. “You were the first to rise from the grave… And I-”

“Wait.” Kieren moves, comes around so that he’s looking into Simon’s eyes. “The what?”

“Kier, didn’t you know? You are the First Risen.”

“The one from the proph- No.” He takes a step back. “I am NOT some sort of Messiah for PDS sufferers.”

Simon shakes his head. “Kieren. You were the first to crawl out of the grave, exactly at the stroke of midnight.”

“How is that possible?”

Simon reaches out, pulls Kieren into his arms. “Just listen, Kier. You were the first to rise from your grave, but I was the first to respond to treatment, the first to rise from  _rotter_  to PDS. And Amy…” He looks down into her empty second grave. “Amy was the first to rise to fully human.”

Kieren become very still, then he flicks those perceptive eyes up to Simon.

“Are you saying…?”

“ _We are all three of us the First Risen_.”

Kieren looks down into the grave. “We need to find Amy.”

“Why don’t you check the security cameras?”

The two of them whip around to see Kieren’s sister swaggering out from the treeline.

“Jem? What are you doing there?”

“I been watching Amy’s grave, case she comes back to it.” Jem’s eyes flick down and away. “Owe her an apology.”

“What’s that you said about cameras?” Simon butts in.

“Installed them a while back to watch the r- PDS sufferers.” She nods towards the mausoleum. “I can’t get in there but I bet your friend knows how to get places he ought not.”

Kieren glances at Simon who shrugs and grins. “Misspent youth.”

-

“Who the hell is that?” They’re leaning over each of Jem’s shoulder, watching the strangers dig Amy up and toss her in the trunk of their car.

“Don’t know,” Simon murmurs, disappointment that they’re not seeing Amy climb herself back out of the grave again. “But we’re going to find out.”

Jem takes a picture of their faces with her phone and then stand up, faces the two men.

“Right then, we best be off, we can start asking at the pub.”

“Jem, you can’t go with us.”

“In case you forgot, Kieren Walker, the Give Back scheme is still going and you,” she points at both of them, “aren’t going anywhere without a Living person to speak for you.”

Jem crosses her arms as her brother looks to Simon for support. He considers, then shakes his head. “She’s got a point, Kier.”

-

“They’re from Norfolk, asking about Amy.” The doctor leans back and crosses his arms. “What’s this about?”

Jem shows him the video and he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I knew they were up to no good.”

“So she’s back at Norfolk,” Kieren runs a hand through his hair and paces while Simon goes very still, withdrawing into himself thinking about the tortures he’d been through there.

“Right then,” Jem stands up. “How do we break in?”

-

“I hate this plan.”

“Still haven’t come up with something better, Kier.”

Simon doesn’t offer his opinion.

“We don’t even know exactly where she is.”

“I’m hoping they’ll tell me, as her sister.”

“Those papers will never hold up, Jem.”

She kisses his cheek. “It’ll be alright, Kier.” Then she puts her hand on Simon’s arm, the first time she’s ever voluntarily touched him. He startles and blinks down at her. “You take good care of him.”

Simon nods and lays an arm across Kieren shoulders as they watch Jem stride confidently into the compound.

-

“She’s been gone too long.”

“Settle, Kier.” He pulls the younger man close, tugs him so that he’s flush with Simon’s body as they lay across the motel room bed.

“She’s my little sister, Simon.”

“Older now, actually.”

Kieren rolls his eyes but lifts his face to Simon’s for a soft kiss. And that’s when it happens. Just as their lips touch, Kieren’s heart gives a thump and his eyes fly open into the equally surprised ones of his lover.

Simon lifts a hesitant hand and rests it over Kieren’s heart as it lurches again, and then starts up a regular rhythm.

“Oh, Kier…”

Simon tugs him close again, wraps arms around the smaller man tightly, and together they feel Kieren’s heartbeat.

-

“Sorry, boys, there was a paperwork mix-up.” Jem flops into the kitchen chair under the intense focus of two pairs of eyes. “I did get some information. They said she’s too dangerous to see her family now, but they did confirm that she’s here.” Jem pulls out a piece of paper and sketches a rough map of the building, stabbing a finger at the rooms that Simon recognizes as the place where they experimented on him.

“It’s in the basement, how do we get in?”

Jem lifts up a container of white makeup. “I go in as a…PDS sufferer.”

Kier leaps to his feet. “No way, Jemima Walker. That’s stupid and dangerous.”

“They’ll know your two faces. They won’t recognize me.”

“It’s not going to happen.”

-

Simon coaches Jem. Kieren will have nothing to do with it. But he gives her a hugs and begs her to be careful.

And then there’s more waiting.

At least for Kieren. Simon spends the time figuring out what contacts he has that wouldn’t turn on his for disobeying the Prophet. Because they’ve come to the conclusion that they can’t go back to Roarton. Everyone, living and dead alike, are going to be after them when they find out.

Kieren calls his mum and dad when he knows they’re going to be out, leaves them a message saying goodbye.

Simon finds them a place to go in the North, gets everything in place.

It’s three days later when Kieren’s eyes change. He’s already stopped wearing the mousse and now the contacts. When he scrapes himself and red blood beads on his skin, he cries. Simon wraps around him and holds him all night.

Simon keeps waiting for something to change about him, but it never happens. He starts to wonder if Kieren will still want him if he doesn’t also go back to being part of the Living.

-

The door slams open, startling the boys, and Kieren falls off the bed as Simon jumps up. “Amy!”

“There’s my boys,” Amy rasps, leaning heavily on Jem, “How bout a hug for your Amy?”

Simon sweeps her up in his arms and she tries for something flirty, but a rattling cough forestalls her.

“What’s wrong with her, Jem?” Kieren demands after pushing himself up from the floor.

“Torture,” she answers succinctly and then stares at her brother. “Kier, your eyes!”

“Another time, we need to get out of here.” Simon looks around and nods, pulls the exhausted Amy to his chest tightly.

-

It takes them two weeks to get to safety, and while Simon tucks Amy up in a quilt, brings her some hot tea, Kieren pulls Jem aside. “When you get back, I need-”

“Not going back,” she interrupts, crossing her arms. “I’m staying here, Kier.”

“You can’t-”

“Hey dumdum,” Amy calls from the other room, and Kieren pokes his head around the corner.

“Amy?”

“Me and Jem got an understanding.” Jem settles down and Amy curls her hand into the younger woman’s. “We’re sticking together from here on out.”

Simon settles his arm on Kieren’s shoulder and looks at the girls. “Well, that’s it then.”

Kieren is still looking between the two in surprise, when he feels Simon shaking him and looks at the hand on his shoulder.

“Simon! Your hand.”

He lifts it up so that every one can see the tremble, and Kieren pulls him into an exuberant kiss.

“Everything’s going to be alright now.”


End file.
